Baby nursing all night, using breast as pacifier... help!

[haunted_star]

I have 2 girls, ages 3 and almost 6 months. I did quit breastfeeding my 3 year old only after a couple weeks and fell in to a deep deep post-partum haze for a good 9 months. Anyway, my almost 6 month old took to the breast immediately and she loves it. She has never been a good sleeper and would initially only sleep when held so out of necessity we ended up co-sleeping for the first 4 months. I finally made the decision to put her in her own room in a crib at 4 months since I felt that we were continuously waking each other up and my poor husband had be stuck on the couch since she was born. My issue over the last 3ish weeks has been that my nursling will fall asleep on her own pretty well at night but will wake every 1-2 hours (max 2 hours) through the night and want to nurse. The other night I sat in the nursery rocking chair for 7 straight hours with her attached to the breast. Last night I managed to avoid that but was up with her every hour to 90 minutes. Today I'm feeling like the exhaustion has caught up with me and slapped me in the face. I'm teary as I'm writing this. I feel soo guilty but I can't continue like this. I can feel the depression starting again and I'm terrified to go down that horrible lonely road again. I don't want to let her cry, it just breaks my heart but at the same time I'm starting to feel resentful and angry. I'm really at the end of my rope and I don't know what to do. I've tried dream feeds, offering her the breast as much as possible during the night, only offering one breast for a few hours prior to bedtime so she gets more hind milk, giving her a pacifier (just makes her angry and she screams even louder until I cave and give her the breast). I honeslty don’t mind feeding her a couple times through the night but this 1-2 hour thing is killing me. Reverting back to co-sleeping is not an option either. I'm finding myself frustrated and I'm loosing my patience with my 3 year old and then the vicious cycle of my feeling like a horrible mother starts. My 3 year old is very busy and wants affection all the time and I shower her with hugs and kisses as much as I can (it's probably worth knowing that she was diagnosed with cancer last year, just after her 2nd birthday and finished chemotherapy in April) but today I'm feeling touched out and just snapped "get off me" as she was climbing over me when I was changing the baby's diaper. I feel horrible and immediately apologized and gave her a big hug. I haven't felt this down with the urge to run away in a very long time.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

[Pielette]

Gosh you've been through so much lately. I really hope your DD is feeling good these days

It sounds like your little one has a nursing to sleep association. How does she go to sleep at bedtime? Does she feed to sleep?

I'd really recommend having a look at the No Cry Sleep Solution, which has some excellent ideas for gently breaking sleep associations. We've been using it for about two weeks on my shocking little sleeper and I'm starting to see improvements.

 

[haunted_star]

She goes to sleep decently well. I do nurse her as the last step in our bedtime routine but ensure that she goes in to her crib awake. She does use a pacifier and goes to sleep within a few minutes. I also have Elizabeth Pantley's book and have been trying the "Pantley pull-off" technique for a couple weeks but haven't seen any improvement yet.

 

[Pielette]

Could you get your DH to try and settle her if it's been less than a certain period of time?